Assignment 7 : In-dependence (Stage 1)

For the final assignment, after brainstorming and going through so many themes, our group's topic is " In-dependence" (note: not independence) which refers to something being in dependent of another thing. For the first stage, we did some rough shootings. I guess in-dependence usually gives the feeling of reliance on something else to make up for any shortcomings on the initial body. And for most people it is more inclined towards the negative side. For my interpretation of in-dependence, I thought of taking things that people depend on to give a sense of comfort to themselves. I thought of was religion-spiritual dependence. Here are two examples of my shots on spiritual dependence.

-----------------------Peaceful Benevolence`-----------------------

This shot was on guan-yin, the goddess of compassion and caring. I chose to emphasize on her fingers. I think it symbolizes peace, healing and comfort.

-----------------------A moment of tranquility`-----------------------

In some religions, joss sticks are offered to the gods and what I wanted to portray here was the feelings that people have when they offer the joss sticks. I see it as a form of dependence as I believe the moment when people pray would be the time when they feel the most peace within themselves. Thus, this form of spiritual dependence gives them a sense of comfort. I took many many shots of the joss sticks to capture the different patterns of smoke and this was the one I was most satisfied with. I also like the smoke in the second joss sticks photo but I thought the first one seems more peaceful because the smoke was not so haphazard.

-----------------------A puff of comfort`-----------------------

Another approach I took was smoking. This idea came when I saw cigarette buds places so neatly in a row. It is definitely unhealthy but I wonder what comes to the minds of these people when they puff away. Could it give them a sense of comfort? Seeing the cigarettes placed in these manner makes me wonder if the people faced many stresses and problems such that smoking allows them to forget about the worries for that short amount of time.

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After Mr Reddy saw our shots, he mentioned most of us tried to show in-dependence literally. Thus most of the shots lacked emotions. Plus we need some link to Singapore and you can imagine what a big headache I had. I think showing dependence on something for comfort is so difficult and now I had to show some link to the Singapore context. I was basically stuck! I thought so hard and if I wanted to continue doing on in-dependence on religion, I would have to think of something to link it to Singapore. I really don't know how to because I am dealing with inner peace, something spiritual.